Dr. Jansen’s Mark 2 runs on Linux. The hardware includes an ARM Atmel microcontroller squeezed into a clam-shell with two OLED touchscreens. Schematics, board layouts, and the firmware is all available free and includes the initial proof-of-concept device.

The tricorders need six AAA to run and include sensors for temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, ambient light, distance and even magnetic fields. Dr. Jansen’s hope is to make scientists out of everyone.

A sale is seen generating as much as $3 billion a year for T-Mobile, according to J.P. Morgan analyst Philip Cusick.

T-Mobile is spending $4 billion to improve its current service and deploy its 4G LTE network by next year. Much of the funds come from a break-up fee that AT&T had to pay T-Mobile for scrapping their planned merger, but more cash is likely needed in order for the business to run on its own with investment from its parent. Last week, T-Mobile said it would cut a net 1,900 jobs after shutting down seven call centers as it looks to continue cutting expenses.

But if T-Mobile is deploying a new LTE network, it will need towers. Perhaps that implies co-location with Sprint-Nextel is more likely. If T-Mobile should move its assets to Sprint towers, that also implies that Dish Networks will need a home. AT&T and Sprint towers might then be leading contenders for hosting Dish’s terrestrial network, which would use the 2.1 GHz (MSS) spectrum (near T-Mobile’s AWS band).

Sprint CFO Joseph Euteneuer told investors this week that Sprint might consider buying spectrum from Dish or signing a spectrum-hosting deal which would allow Dish to offer wireless services via a combination of Sprint’s network and the 40 MHz of S-band spectrum that Dish holds, reports Fierce Wireless. Sprint’s Network Vision program unifies its many networks and offers an opportunity for Sprint to host other carriers on its cell sites.

Posted by
Sam Churchill
on
March 29th, 2012

Clarke said during an interview with the Smithsonian. “Every major company in the United States has already been penetrated by China. My greatest fear is that, rather than having a cyber-Pearl Harbor event, we will instead have this death of a thousand cuts. Where we lose our competitiveness by having all of our research and development stolen by the Chinese.

“The U.S. government is involved in espionage against other governments,” he says flatly. “There’s a big difference, however, between the kind of cyberespionage the United States government does and China. The U.S. government doesn’t hack its way into Airbus and give Airbus the secrets to Boeing [many believe that Chinese hackers gave Boeing secrets to Airbus]. We don’t hack our way into a Chinese computer company like Huawei and provide the secrets of Huawei technology to their American competitor Cisco. We don’t do that.”

Specifically, the advisory committee endorsed industry-based recommendations in each of these three areas,

Anti-Bot Code of Conduct — To reduce the threat of botnets in residential networks, CSRIC recommended a voluntary U.S. Anti-Bot Code of Conduct for Internet Service Providers (Anti-Bot Code). Under the Anti-Bot Code, ISPs agree to educate consumers about the botnet threat, take steps to detect botnet activity on their networks, make consumers aware of botnet infections on their computers, offer assistance to consumers whose computers are infected and collaborate with other service providers that have also adopted the Anti-Bot Code.

DNS Best Practices — CSRIC recommended that ISPs implement best practices to better secure the Domain Name System by using DNSSEC, a set of secure protocol extensions that prevent such fraudulent activity. This recommendation is a significant first step toward full DNSSEC implementation by ISPs and will allow users, with software applications like browsers, to validate that the destination they are trying to reach is authentic and not a spoofed website.

IP Route Hijacking Industry Framework — CSRIC recommended an industry framework to prevent Internet route hijacking, which is the erroneous routing of Internet traffic through potentially untrustworthy networks. CSRIC recommended that ISPs work to implement new technologies and practices to reduce the number of these events, thereby ensuring that users in the U.S. can be more confident that their Internet traffic will not be exposed to scrutiny by other networks, foreign or domestic, through misrouting.

According to recent data from 3GPP, Huawei has had 265 LTE/LTE-A Core specifications approved since 2010, which is 20 percent of the total number approved and the most out of any other company in the industry.

In theory the 802.22 specification suggests that download speeds of up to 22Mbps per channel could be possible. Some UK trials claim to have reached around 16Mbps. But White Spaces use only a 6 MHz channel, not the 20 MHz channel common in WiFi, so speeds should be expected to be at least 1/3rd the speed. Similar to WiFi, performance drops off sharply with distance.

Separate reports from both PC Pro and the BBC today found that the service, which is complicated to deliver due to the ever changing spectrum and the risk of causing interference to DTV services, could struggle to deliver its top speeds.

“BT said it could offer up to 4Mbits/sec as far as 6km from the transmitter. The highest speed we achieved on location was 6.2Mbits/sec – and that was in sight of the mast. A point 6km from the transmitter had much slower speeds; we saw a top speed of 1.5Mbits/sec at the time, but BT claimed it has regularly achieved speeds of 3.5Mbits/sec.” Chris Gibbs of BT’s Openreach said, “Although it has the same characteristics as copper – the further you go the worse the signal gets – it goes a bit further, and that’s the advantage.”

“After a few hitches, it seemed to work pretty well, with sound and video coming across then network. The speeds on offer, however, are far from spectacular. BT says it can deliver around 10Mbps or more, but at the moment it’s giving users download speeds of between 4 and 8Mbps.

My own tests showed the network delivering only around 3Mbps – but then the upload speeds were about the same, making video conferencing eminently feasible. During the trial, the available capacity is being tweaked between upload and download to see what works best for consumers.”

“White Space” technology is also being tested in the United States. Rural users may benefit most from the promise of White Spaces transmission. It has a longer range than most phone-based DSL which poops out after 3 miles or so. It also travels further than WiFi or cellular signals, and may provide a lower cost alternative to satellite broadband. Multiple channels can be ganged together to increase speed and the number of simultaneous users.

Unlicensed white space radios would automatically find unused VHF/UHF spectrum and utilize it for multi-point communications, much like long distance Wi-Fi.

The UK’s 4G auctions will include the 800 MHz and 2.6 GHz bands. The spectrum auction is not expected to start until the end of this year, with services perhaps a year later. Everything Everywhere, a joint venture between T-Mobile and France Telecom, hopes to reuse its 2G spectrum for 4G services in the 1,800MHz range.

Posted by
Sam Churchill
on
March 28th, 2012

In 2011, Windows PCs running on any x86-compatible CPU had a 35.9% market share, while Android on ARM CPUs had a 29.4% share and iOS a 14.6% share.

By 2016, Android-based devices running on ARM CPUs are estimated to reach a 31.1% share – more than either iOS or Windows (x86), says IDC. By 2016, IDC estimates iOS will have a 17.3% market share, Android 31.1% with Windows dropping to 25.1%.